Wait ends, work on PGI’s 500-bed satellite centre begins in Sangrur

After a long wait, work on constructing the Rs 450-crore 500-bed satellite hospital of the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research, Chandigarh, has begun in Ghabdan Kothi near Sangrur. The project is scheduled to be completed within 34 months.

Hindustan Times had highlighted the inordinate delay in getting the project off the ground in a story titled ‘PGI’s 500-bed satellite hospital project remains a non-starter in Sangrur’, published on June 20.

Initially a temporary outpatient department, a guest house and a boundary will be built at a cost of Rs 23.28 crore. The OPD will be housed in an airconditioned building and have facilities like ultrasound imaging, ECG, X-ray and other diagnostic tools and is likely to be ready in six months,.

The first phase of the project is expected be completed within one year.

Anand Sharma, the project manager of the construction firm, said: “Construction work has already started and we’ll complete the project’s first phase in the given stipulated time of 12 months.”

According to sources, a total of 73 job positions, including seven of assistant professors, six of senior residents and ten of junior residents have been created for the OPD in the first phase. PGI’s deputy director (admn), Chetan PS Rao, has already requested the joint secretary in the central health & family welfare ministry to sanction these posts.

Spread over 25 acres the hospital is being considered as the lifeline of the predominantly agricultural Sangrur region where healthcare facilities are severely lacking.

It will also cater to regionspecific diseases. The project will reduce the long distances residents have to travel for treatment and also considerably reduce the patient burden on PGI.